Page:The International Jew - Volume 1.djvu/170

 166 cry out against the anti-social ideas of their people, but who dare not because of the penalties it would bring.

This denunciation, as Protocol Seventeen orders, is to be made against anyone who is “known to be opposed to the Kahal” or ancient Soviet system of the Jews.

After the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans, the Jews maintained a center in the Patriarch; and after the dispersion of the Jews out of Palestine this center of nationality was preserved in the Prince of the Exile, or Exilarch, an office which is believed to persist to the present time, and which some believe to be held now by an American Jew. In spite of all assertions to the contrary, the Jews have never ceased to be “a people”; that is, a consciously united racial group, different from all others, and with purposes and ideals which are strictly of the Jews, by the Jews, and for the Jews in distinction from the rest of the world. That they constitute a nation within the nations, the most responsible Jewish thinkers not only declare but insist upon. And this is wholly in accord with the facts as observed. The Jew not only desires to live apart from other people, but he works with his own people as against others, and he desires as much as possible to live under his own laws. In the city of New York today, the Jews have succeeded in establishing their own court for the settlement of their own questions according to their own laws. And that is precisely the principle of the Soviet-Kahal.

From the first century forward, as any reader can see by consulting the Jewish Encyclopedia, the “community,” “assembly” or “Kahal” has been the center of Jewish life. It was so earlier, in the time of the Babylonian captivity. And the last official appearance of it was at the Peace Conference, where the Jews, in accordance with their World Program, the only program that passed successfully and unchanged through the Peace Conference, secured for themselves the right to the Kahal for administrative and cultural purposes in addition to many other privileges in countries where their activities had been a matter of protest. The Polish question is purely a Jewish question, and Paderewski’s failure as a statesmen was entirely